Yet another beauty brand, Haus Labs, is being called out for its lack of diverse shades for consumers. But unlike in the past, the brand’s owner, Grammy-winning singer Lady Gaga, has now responded to the critique.
Things kicked off in May 2026 after popular makeup influencer Golloria criticized the brand for having only six shades available for its latest bronzer product. After swatching the three darkest shades as part of a review, Golloria expressed her disappointment at the brand for not offering any deeper shades.
“Gaga, Haus Labs, you guys usually do not miss. Did something change on the team?… I’m genuinely perplexed because I generally like a lot of Haus Labs complexion products, but this right here? That is not a Gaga gag. That’s a Gaga, I got gagged,” she said in part in the video. “I don’t know who or what you guys switched up in that lab. But switch it back. Thank ya!”
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It appeared that her words got back to the Haus Labs team, as she received an email from them. In it, they asked her to remove the video, citing that the products she received for her review were under embargo (essentially implying that she may have possibly broken a legal agreement by publicizing them before they hit the shelves).
This, in turn, prompted Golloria to release another video where she expressed further disappointment at how the Haus Labs team handled things and pushed back on the products being under embargo, citing that they had already been made public on Instagram. Instead, she insinuated that the brand had a problem with her leaving a negative review of the products and didn’t want the video up.
@golloria i can love y’all to the bone, @Haus Labs , and still say when something doesn’t feel right. nobody is bigger than the program.
we just gotta do better, because that situation genuinely did not feel good, sistas! and as always, thank you to my team for advocating for me, my voice, and the work we do with so much care and conviction. i could not do this without y’all.
Now, Lady Gaga has entered the chat, issuing an apology to Golloria and consumers through an official brand statement. In it, the company owned its missteps and admitted that, despite going through its usual shade-development process, someone internally made the decision to move forward with only six shades — and that decision was wrong.
“We heard you loud and clear…You were 100% right. We will work hard to make sure it never happens again,” the statement read in part.
Gaga and Haus Labs also acknowledged that the bigger problem was how the brand responded to being called out, describing their ask of Golloria as “unkind” and admitting that creators and customers should be able to voice their concerns without being treated that way. The bronzer’s launch has been paused while the team returns to the lab to expand the product offering to 11 shades. They also plan to have internal conversations about how to keep instances like this from happening again.
“We heard you loud and clear. In the past, we have been steadfast about our shade development process across all of our complexion and color products. We have also always held ourselves to a high standard in how we treat our community-with kindness and respect,” the statement said.
After reading the statement, Golloria reposted it to her Instagram Stories, writing in part: “I never speak up just to make noise. I speak because colorism is bigger than any product I could ever review. It has shaped who the world learns to see as beautiful, who is instinctively afforded softness and grace, and whose absence we’ve been conditioned not to notice,” per Entertainment Weekly,
